Mountie Standard  Time
by Lassiturtle
Summary: Fairness, suffering, and tricky watches. Ray Kowalski is caught in a crisis of existentialism and identity. He just doesn't recognize it. Benton Fraser tries to help the only ways he knows how.


**Story Note: **_Just a one-shot. A conversation between friends. Ray Kowalski is having a bit of an existential and identity crisis. He just doesn't know. Benton Fraser tries to help the only ways he knows how. _

**Disclaimer: **_I own nothing. Mountie Standard Time does not exist, but feel free to set your watches to it! _

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><p><strong>Mountie Standard Time<strong>

_By Lassiturtle_

Ray Kowalski's desk was tidier than normal this morning, Fraser noted as he neared the detective's workspace. There were, in fact, no files or papers whatsoever strewn a-clutter on the somewhat dingy surface to which he'd grown accustomed. Neatly placed on the center of the piece of well-marred furniture was, instead, Ray.

Rocking slightly back and forth on the toes of his boots, he was balanced in a sort of Zen-like squat, elbows resting on his splayed knees, fingers clasped together toward his center, head down, and eyes squinted halfway closed. Perhaps halfway open. Fraser sat down innocuously at the chair by the desk and waited. A minute or so later, Ray began to speak.

"You ever feel like it's not fair, Fraser?" He worked the toothpick that protruded from his lips between his left incisors with his tongue, small lines etching themselves in thoughtful paths across that side of his face in a dance with the tiny wooden spear.

Fraser, whose eyes had until then been focused intently on Ray's face from a bit of a distance, stood abruptly and poked his face quite directly in front of his partner's. "What's that, Ray?"

The rocking ceased, but Ray's eyes kept their focus elsewhere, seemingly unaware of Fraser's gaze.

_Hmm_, thought Fraser. Right now he was sure his eyes had the potential to drill a hole in Ray's skull faster than a wood-boring Death Watch Beetle in a church. Even more distracted than usual. He looked down.

"Hmm…" Ray nodded.

"Indeed, "Fraser agreed. Had he 'hummed' aloud? Perhaps their liaising was improving their communications skills.

Ray stared up for the first time with a look of incredulity, opened his mouth, toothpick slack, before jumping to his feet on the desk, then dismounting, taking a seat on the edge.

Fraser, who had maneuvered swiftly to the side to avoid being kicked in the head, took a seat calmly once more in the chair.

"You are unhinged." Ray stared at Fraser and ran a hand through his own hair, which today seemed to contain gel, but Fraser couldn't for the life of his Uncle Tiberius (for what that was worth), understand what purpose it served. Some of the blond shocks stuck straight up, others lay flat and disobedient, and some parts of his hair looked perfectly well-kempt and, impossibly, the slightest bit dignified. Fraser didn't think this was the proper time to point out that perhaps it was not he who was "unhinged."

"Well?" The disheveled detective looked at Fraser, who was still staring at Ray's hair, mouth slightly agape in bemusement.

"Well, what, Ray? Many things aren't fair. Genetics, for instance, could be seen as unfair or disadvantantageous—"

"Fraser—"

"—Certain weather systems could bring harm to an unprepared plant species. Such an event could indeed cause extinction in rare cases... Natural disasters, acts of God, disease, being hit square in the chest by a dead sea otter. Now some would see that as a—"

"Fraser!" The Mountie looked up, interrupted, his animated arms dropping to his sides.

"Yes, Ray."

"_It_."

Fraser nodded at Ray. "To what "it" were you referring?"

"Heh. Thought you were gonna knock your hat off for a second there."

"Not to fear. Please continue."

"Suffering. Do you ever feel like suffering just ain't fair, Frase?" Ray sat still, his arms folded tightly across his chest, a frown furrowing itself more and more deeply and he seemed to pull inside himself.

"In what sense?" Fraser was surprised by the question. It was broad. It held so many implications. It seemed to come from nowhere. But this _was_ Ray.

"Uh, well. Okay. You know that woman who was kidnapped last month?" He shifted then looked at the man sitting next to him.

"Stacy Goodwin. Yes." Fraser rubbed his fingers over his eyebrow unconsciously as images flashed through his mind of the horrific rescue to which they'd been party. The dank room in which they'd found her, barely alive; ripe with the smell of torture, cold, practically echoing still with the shadows of what a young man had done to her. "I would call that unfair, if that's what you're asking," Benton Fraser's blue eyes took on a haunted clarity as they met Ray's once again.

"Actually, no. I… I don't know how to say this. Thing is. You know what? This is gonna sound totally so… so more than wrong and selfish. Ah, never mind, Fraser." He bounced off the desk and grabbed his coat, forcing a smile. "You want lunch, buddy? I'll pay."

"Ray."

"I am definitely in the mood for a sandwich. Like one the size of both of our heads. Combined. That would be greatness."

"Ray."

"And coffee. No more station stuff. I want the good kind. Okay, I'll settle for average coffee. Sugary coffee. And a big, enormo-huge, as-big-me sandwich."

"Ray, it's nine seventeen in the morning." Fraser remained seated, his eyebrows raised, a hand gesturing for Ray to sit back down.

"Oh." Downcast eyes followed Ray's jacket to his chair this time. He slumped in sloppily on top of the jacket. "Bad coffee it shall be, then." He only glanced toward the coffee, though, before putting his hands on his desk and his head down.

Fraser wasn't sure he should press Ray on whatever subject upon which he wasn't elaborating. Applying direct pressure wasn't really in the constable's nature. He generally found it best to either let people unravel their emotions or hard-to-form thoughts at their own paces or gently guide them into a feeling of security with a common tale, eliciting a response in kind. He stared at Ray's posture, head on the desk. He really did look incredibly forlorn. It was somewhat disconcerting.

"Ray, my friend. You look forlorn."

Without so much as a raise of a head came a muffled response: "Heads up, seven up."

"I'm afraid I don't understand." The man was clearly three huskies short of a sled team. "Would you like a soft drink?"

A low growl emanated from deep within Ray's throat. The rumble would have been fierce had it not been for the fabric into which it was currently being drooled. His head popped up, an unkind smile smeared over half his face.

"Yes, Fraser. I'm forlorn. That, my friend, is the problem. How is it fair that I, Ray, Stanley Raymond Kowalski, Ray Vecchio, whoever the hell I am, feel as though I'm… _me…I'm_ suffering when a lady has recently been tortured, when genes are, are, being taken advantage of, and extinction, and natural disasters, and something about sea otters! How is _that_ fair, Fraser? I have no right to feel like I'm suffering here. I do not deserve—" He grabbed at his hair again. "—to feel like I am suffering." He stared at Fraser wildly, hands still woven tightly into his hair, eyebrows raised challengingly.

Not one to unnecessarily exacerbate a situation, Fraser looked down once again, adjusting his Red Serge, before moving his eyes back to meet his friend's. Still feral. Ah. Well. He raised his eyebrows, scooted his chair in closer, and paused.

Ray looked expectant.

Although he could think of many; well, one in particular came to mind involving a man named Peter, a walrus, and an extremely unfortunate harpooning incident; Inuit anecdotes might not be the ticket to making a connection this time. It was, though, a truly horrific event… But that didn't matter. What did matter was the agitated man searching for meaning in front of him this moment.

Fraser opened his mouth with a sharp intake of breath, held it for a moment… and then shut his mouth, rubbing his left earlobe with his hand. "Ray, if I may be so bold, and forgive me if this is forward…"

"Be bold, you may, I forgive you, go forward, go backwards, rip off the steering wheel… Fraser, are you just going to stare at me all day and make me feel stupider or what?"

Oh, dear. Benjamin Franklin appeared to be quite correct in this case: _As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence._

"No, not at all. I'm curious as to the nature of what has you down at the moment." He leaned forward with his elbows on the desk, a gesture of appeasement. His comrade looked a bit taken aback. The lines in his face softened and he let out a light chuckle.

"Oh." Ray laughed again nervously, tucking his legs under his chair and relaxing his arms in front of him next to Fraser's. "All right. Well. Thing is, I'm… Geez, this is so lame. I'm, I'm lonely. This undercover stuff, being me-Ray, pretending to be Vecchio-Ray, but still being around Stella… there was no… no clean cut. No… I guess I thought, ooh, starting over, new me! But now it's still old me plus new me, which isn't me at all, and… damn it, this isn't making any sense." Ray slapped himself on the neck as he glanced at his one-man audience for a reaction.

"I… am… blithering, correct?"

"Possibly." Fraser touched him firmly on the shoulder and gave him a confident half-smile. "But you are making perfect sense, Ray. The American essayist and novelist James Baldwin once wrote, 'An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.' You, my friend, are a sum of all of these experiences. I'm sorry they've become jumbled in an unexpected way, but you have put your experiences from the past and now, even as you are, as you say, suffering, obviously in turmoil, to such use that you have created a wonderful new identity for yourself. In helping others. In becoming my friend. In being a good man."

Ray looked sullen.

"This is not helping." It wasn't a question, as Fraser saw the crestfallen expression sliding further and further into empty features.

"No."

"I'm sorry, Ray." There was a moment where nothing was said. It wasn't awkward, just… quiet. "Would you like a piece of gum?"

"Yeah." Ray's mouth curved upward on one side for a split second, perhaps pondering from where the Mountie had procured it. A look of horror spread across his face as soon as he popped it in his mouth. Without biting down, he said, "You did not pick this off the street, out of someone's mouth, or lick it prior to handing it to me, Fraser? Tell me you did not do that." He waited, mouth halfway open.

"Of course not, Ray. Don't be silly. I simply borrowed it from Turnbull's desk with the intention of replacing it. At some point."

"Ah. Thank you, then. Much appreciated." Ray chewed voraciously, turning his attention inward once more.

"Are you familiar with the discipline of logotherapy?" Blank look. More chewing.

"Ah. Well, it was developed by Viktor Frankl as a school of psychiatric analysis focused on the doctrine of _the will to meaning_, rather than, say, Nietzsche's will to power or Freud's will to pleasure…"

"What galaxy are you from again? See, I was at the shooting range a lot for awhile there before I met you and I think I missed where you said you were fr—

"Canada, Ray."

"Yeah, yeah. Go on." He snapped his gum. "But you are a freak."

"That's not important. What is important is that Frankl believed that suffering is subjective. He was a Holocaust survivor, yet he believed that one could only compare one's own suffering to what one had already experienced in his life. He likened it to gas filling a gas chamber. A small amount of gas would fill the entire chamber just as a large amount of gas would."

"I'm not in a gas chamber, Fraser."

"Picture your suffering as gas filling a chamber. The chamber can be your heart or your soul. It will still fill it. You can only experience your own suffering, Ray. Comparing it to what you think others have been through is entirely pointless, as you lack the ability to even perceive what they have felt. Perhaps yours is greater. Perhaps it is not. All you can know is yourself, and that you are, indeed, suffering."

"Huh."

"So it would follow that you are, some would say, quite enlightened about your current emotional state. And, to answer your question, yes. It's quite fair." Fraser stared hard at Ray, who'd stopped chewing his gum.

"Huh."

"That's all? 'Huh'?"

"Yup." Ray resumed chewing his gum and sat upright, looking at his watch.

"You were akimbo on your desk, and now you're fine…?"

"No idea whatsoever, Fraser, buddy. Thanks for confusing the hell outta me." He grinned. It was sincere this time.

"You're welcome, Ray." Fraser ran his tongue along his lower lip. "May I please see your watch?"

"See or have?"

"Have, please."

Ray removed his watch and handed it over, perplexed. Fraser accepted the timepiece, smiling with a nod as he turned his back to his partner. In a moment, he whipped around and handed it back to Ray.

"All better!"

"Was it slow? Did you switch it to Mountie Standard Time?" Ray looked down as he re-fastened it to his wrist. "Oh. Ah. Clever. I like what you did there." He grinned.

"Sandwich time, Ray!" Fraser stood, his own watch hidden cavalierly behind his back, the other in front of him. "Onward to enormo-huge sandwiches. After you."

"Oh, no. After you. I insist." Ray jumped back with a small flourish the rest of the department probably wouldn't notice. "It's part of my new sufferin' succotash identity to hold doors and whatnot."

Fraser took three steps, then stopped, nearly colliding with an aid carrying a stack of files. He did an about-face, his nose almost touching Ray's.

"I did not know you liked legumes."

Ray shook his head slowly. "Neither did I…" He made a weird face, then physically turned Fraser around by his shoulders. "Sandwiches."

"Right you are." Fraser grinned, then proceeded forward. As he passed Diefenbaker on the way out, he looked at him squarely, enunciated clearly, and said, "LEGUMES." The wolf ran off, whining. A sandwich didn't sound too bad right now.

And Ray… Well, Ray had to face his demons, but he understood what they were and who he was. He was fine for now. He might be eating his meals three hours early for a week, though, unless someone forced him to change his watch back from "Mountie Standard Time."

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>_ This is my first one-shot anywhere. I sort of wanted to do a little character study without much action to see if I could keep the characters in-character. I also wanted to have a nice friendship piece. I tend to write (in other fandoms) long suspense/action/horror/adventure stories. I thought it would be a helpful exercise for me to write something without a lot of fast-paced action and quick banter. Please tell me what you think in a review! I'd love to know if you liked it or how I can improve this style, since I've never tried it; and these characters, since I have loved them dearly forever, but haven't ventured into fan fiction with them until now. Oh, and tomorrow is my birthday, so reviews would be really sweet birthday presents. TYK!_


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